GENERAL: Found someone for reprogramming TileEdit

[Tellius]

Hi,

I raised this question already in the past, but I think I have found someone to help with this...

One of the things I was looking forward too for AE, was being able to work with bigger sized tiles. Say, 200 or 250% of what it is now. I would then be able to contribute to AE in the only way I know how, by creating beautifull looking graphics. E told me that adjusting the Source Code itself would probably be no big problem, the main problem was coming up with a tileset containing bigger sized tiles. And that in turn required reprogramming TileEdit so it would be able to accept bigger sizes.

I placed an add in the local newspaper asking for help on this matter, and got two responses.

My question is, what are important issues I should raise with these guys before 'putting them to work' so to say? I explained the working of TileEdit as clearly as possible to them, and told them the main goal was to get TileEdit to accept bigger sized tiles and to create *.til files with bigger terrain, river and tile imp tiles. But are there other things I should definitely make them aware off, things a person for whom programming is a dark and shady art - me - might forget?

Second big issue, I know there are some people out there who might prefer to play with the older graphics, how do you guys feel about this, might it be possible to give a graphics choice upon starting the game? I don't want to accept help from these friendly Belgians if there's a chance their work will go to waste.

Thanks

Tellius

[Maquiladora]

Is it really so easy to implement bigger tiles in the game? Surely it would have huge knock-on effects. I wouldn't be surprised if it would be quicker to make a new game. Having said that, I would love to see an option for bigger tiles in the game. Animated terrain and cities would also be very cool.

You can still be very creative with the tile size we have now though, just look at the Civ2 and Test of Time scenarios in development, and CtP2 has far more possibilities.

[Tellius]

Hi,

You can still be very creative with the tile size we have now though

I did all I could with the current tiles, you can see the result in the tileset I offered for download in the Succession Game thread.
But for a graphics geek such as myself, it's like having to run a race in a room the size of a toilet, you want to give it your best, but you're in some kind of straight jacket.
Do you know how little 94x72 really is, you have to resize everything to ridiculously small scales.

Nope, if I can get this thing working, I'm in 7th heaven, being able to do the one thing I am at least decently good at: making beautifull graphics.

Looking forward to any and all input on this before I put my "coding team" to work

Tellius

[Ekmek]

do a search for tile edit discussion. for a long time there was a part of til code that people couldn't figure out. it ended up being that placement stuff at the bottom.

If they want to see how the code uses the til file its in the tiledraw.cpp and tiledmap.cpp IIRC.

thats all i can think of for now.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Tellius
Hi,

I did all I could with the current tiles, you can see the result in the tileset I offered for download in the Succession Game thread.
But for a graphics geek such as myself, it's like having to run a race in a room the size of a toilet, you want to give it your best, but you're in some kind of straight jacket.
Do you know how little 94x72 really is, you have to resize everything to ridiculously small scales.

Nope, if I can get this thing working, I'm in 7th heaven, being able to do the one thing I am at least decently good at: making beautifull graphics.

Yeah, I saw the tile file, it was excellent in parts, like the grassland hills, which were shrunken from civ3 IIRC?

The thing is though, almost anything will lose detail if you shrink it, it just happened those hills still looked good but even still lost some detail.

You can create beautiful graphics with the size we have now, but it's far better to use the CtP2 size as your base, and build up the detail a few pixels at a time.

And certainly in a game like this it's more helpful to have as wide a view as possible over your empire. That's my only worry game-play-wise, with making the tiles bigger. Yes you can zoom out, but then what's the point in creating bigger and more detailed tiles if we spend all the time zoomed out for a more helpful view?

[Tellius]

Hi,

And certainly in a game like this it's more helpful to have as wide a view as possible over your empire. That's my only worry game-play-wise, with making the tiles bigger. Yes you can zoom out, but then what's the point in creating bigger and more detailed tiles if we spend all the time zoomed out for a more helpful view?

I 'tested' a gameview with bigger tiles by creating a virtual gameworld in photoshop, and then looking at that after having notched the resolution up. Believe me, whether it's 150% or 200% bigger tiles, if you choose a higher resolution the result is both graphically stunning and completely playable (I don't think anyone plays at CtP2's highest resolution right now, choosing that one combined with bigger graphics gives a beautifull result with the same overview).

Playing with regularly sized tiles on a lower or medium CtP2 resolution does NOT give the same effect as choosing a higher CtP2 resolution combined with bigger sized tiles mind you, it's the same difference as actually downsizing an image (which is what I have to do now with lots of tile imps and cities) versus leaving those (often Civ3-) graphics the same size but printing it on a smaller surface area: the latter option actually improves the quality of the image.

So, I think there's nothing to worry about, it's just a matter of picking the right new size so it'll go well with CtP2's second highest or highest resolution. The result will be beautifull graphics with nice looking cities and tile imps, combined with the same playability we have now. More room also for adding graphics in cities for several city improvements.

@E: one of the people willing to help me, thinks it's as easy as making the 'paintboxes' bigger, making it possible to import bigger sizes (when you were to choose File-New, you'd have to choose what size 'paintbox' you'd want to work with, so TileEdit would only accept that size in that specific tilefile). Surely it must be way harder than that? See screenshot.



Greetz

Tellius

[Martin Gühmann]

One thing I would like to see in CTP2 is 32 bit graphics, but that has of course low priority. At least it would be nice for tile edit to have an 32 bit option if it is not too much work.

-Martin

[Ekmek]

one of the people willing to help me, thinks it's as easy as making the 'paintboxes' bigger, making it possible to import bigger sizes (when you were to choose File-New, you'd have to choose what size 'paintbox' you'd want to work with, so TileEdit would only accept that size in that specific tilefile). Surely it must be way harder than that? See screenshot.

I have no idea if thats how it'll work or not. It depends on what Martin the Dane's code says.

@Martin Guhmann
As for tile size I saw itin tiledmap IIRC would it break anything to put it in a txt file that someone can set or even the user profile?

[Tellius]

Hi,

Martin the Dane has agreed to put comments in the TileEdit sourcecode where changes need to be made, so that'll be extremely helpfull.

As for 32-bit, I'd rather first try this, then see whether or not it works, before trying yet another change. I'm afraid this project alone will create some serious bugs before working correctly.

I just updated my Bryce software, and I'm ready to start creating all terrain stuff.

Tellius